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China's Ministry of Defense said two military websites were the victims of an average of 144,000 cyber attacks a month in 2012, with almost two-thirds originating in the United States. Siobhan Gorman reports on The News Hub.

It was the most specific statement to date from the Chinese government since Internet security firm Mandiant released a report in February that linked the Chinese military to attacks across the globe, including against U.S. corporations and government agencies.

The Chinese allegations illustrate how online attacks are becoming a major irritant to U.S.-China relations. U.S. military and homeland-security officials have long blamed China's military for the most serious attacks on U.S. computer networks, but in 2011, U.S. officials began fingering China publicly when a U.S. intelligence report said Chinese hackers are the "most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage." Senior intelligence officials said China's government and sympathetic hackers are behind the cyberspying.

On China's Defense Ministry website Thursday, ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng didn't specifically accuse the U.S. government of responsibility for the attacks. Nonetheless, he referenced "U.S. media reports" that he said revealed that the U.S. planned to craft a policy endorsing pre-emptive cyberattacks, expanding its cyberwar personnel, and drawing up rules of engagement. It wasn't clear which media reports he referred to.

"These practices are not conducive to the joint efforts of the international community to enhance Internet security. We hope the United States will explain and clarify," the statement said.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on Thursday on the latest Chinese allegations.

American officials have said that regardless of the veracity of reports of attacks originating within the U.S., the U.S. government doesn't carry out state-sponsored hacking for corporate espionage.

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Mr. Geng said that since the creation of the Ministry of National Defense and China Military Online websites, both had faced serious and growing numbers of attacks. "According to IP addresses, in 2012 the Defense Ministry and China Military Online websites each month faced 144,000 foreign attacks. Of those, ones coming from the U.S. represented 62.9%," he said.

Mr. Geng didn't specify whether the alleged attacks were directed only at the websites, or more broadly targeted the underlying military networks that would contain more sensitive information. He also reiterated a statement last week by China's Foreign Ministry, which denied the findings of the Mandiant report, saying that it is difficult to track online attacks back to their source and that the Chinese military doesn't carry out hacking.

China's cyberemergency-response agency released a report in March 2012, that concluded that cyberattacks on Chinese computers come primarily from the U.S., Japan and South Korea, saying that 20% of the Chinese computers commandeered for cyberattacks track back to the U.S. Attacks from Japan edged out the U.S. with 23%. The report also concluded that China is facing increasingly serious threats from overseas cyberattacks.

Akamai Technologies, which monitors large amounts of Web traffic, said in last year's third quarter China was the world's No. 1 source of observed attack traffic, with 33% of such traffic. The U.S. was second, at 13%.

On Sunday, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" that the U.S. was losing a global cyberwar. When asked if he believed the Chinese government was targeting attacks against U.S. companies, Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) said, "beyond a shadow of a doubt."

"They use their military and intelligence structure to [steal] intellectual property from American businesses, and European businesses, and Asian businesses, repurpose it and then compete in the international market against the United States. It is unprecedented," he said, adding that the issue, "gets to a fundamental relationship with the Chinese. I think we have to make it very clear to them that "this cannot be business as usual," and show that "there's a price to pay."

Following the release of the Mandiant report, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the U.S. had raised objections "at the highest levels" with China about cyber-intrusions. A number of major U.S. technology companies, including Twitter Inc., Microsoft Corp., Facebook Inc., and Apple Inc. have said over the past month that they have been victims of a cyberattack, though none linked it to China.

In March 2012, a handful of local Chinese government websites and several dozen belonging to Chinese companies appeared to be hacked by the global hacking group Anonymous, displaying a message that in part read: "Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible, today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall."

Over the past month, China's potential role in cyberattacks has come under increasing scrutiny. In January, a number of news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, said they were infiltrated by Chinese hackers believed to have government links.

People familiar with an earlier investigation by U.S. intelligence agencies into Chinese hacker groups infiltrating U.S. networks have said most were found to have been linked to the Chinese military. Previous targets of Chinese hackers have included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Nortel Networks Ltd.

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